My Commonplace Book

With all the recalls going on, I keep telling myself I should check recalls.gov from time to time. I even browsed through it a couple of times. But it's much harder to use than it looks. If you click on "Recent Recalls" you get six very tiny text windows, each about an inch-and-a-half square, with the instructions "Below are the most recent recalls issued by the six government regulatory agencies participating in recalls.gov. Scroll down if necessary to see each agency's recalls. Clicking on a link to view details opens a new window at the issuing agency's web site."

Each window is wide enough for five or six words, so there's a lot of scrolling. But if you click on the agency's link, it takes you to the main page, and you then have to figure out how to navigate that site.

The whole process is awful. But I did look around, especially in the box labeled Consumer Products, following the link to the Consumer Product Safety Commission's website, and from there to their recall page, which is absolutely impossible to navigate unless you know what you're looking for. The whole point of recalls.gov is for people to be able to check it to see what is being recalled! In all my looking around at the CPSC, FDA and the other four agencies, I never did find anything being recalled that might affect me.


I have central air conditioning, but I need fans to assist the crappy air-handling system in my house, which blasts some rooms with icy air in the summer and leaves others with a bare dribble of lukewarm air. I have fans in three places on the upper floor of my townhouse in an effort to get some cool air up here.

I was looking for a fan for this room at Target a few years ago, and saw a tower fan -- a vertical blower that takes up very little floor space. It seemed like just what I needed -- I could put it right in the doorway. So I bought one.

Instead of a rotating knob it has buttons on the top for off and three different fan speeds. A couple of months ago I pushed the medium button and nothing happened. I pushed some different buttons -- nothing. It hadn't been moved or even touched except for pressing the II and 0 buttons once each on hot days. I wondered why it had simply stopped working.

I didn't do anything about it, just pushed buttons occasionally when I went past it. It continued to not work. I thought about the quote attributed to Albert Einstein: "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result." But my microwave inexplicably came back to life after being dead for years*, so why not keep trying the fan.

For several days I'd poke a few buttons when I went past it. Nothing. It seemed well and truly dead. I figured a wire in the pushbutton unit had fallen off, and wondered if it was fixable or I'd have to buy a new one. Since I've been so short of round tuits lately, it just stayed there.

I finally realized I wasn't going to do anything with it, and wondered if I'd waited too long to find a new one at an end-of-season sale. This afternoon I finally got around to posting the old on freecycle, explaining that it wasn't working but could probably be easily fixed. Before sending the post I looked for a picture to illustrate what a tower fan is. I went to Google Images and searched on Holmes tower fan -- and the third hit showed a picture of my exact fan over the words "Tower Fans Recalled by the Holmes ...".

Huh? Clicking on it, I got a page at the CPSC from last January. I checked the model number and date on the fan. It was the one being recalled. Electrical arcing in the fan's wiring had started 16 fires.

Yikes! My fan had probably developed the same problem, but whatever was separating had separated far enough so it just stopped working altogether. I shuddered. I hadn't heard or seen any arcing, but who knows what had been going on in there when I pushed the buttons!

holmesfanrecall.com accepted my claim, but instead of being given the page to print out and send in, the website came up with an error message. I tried the phone number, but the automated system said my fan wasn't included in the recall. I called the CPSC number and they gave me the customer service number for Holmes, where I was able to finally get a live human being who was actually very helpful.

She confirmed that my fan is the one being recalled, and told me to cut the plug off and send it in with my name and address and the confirmation number she gave me, and I would receive a new one in about two weeks.

I would never have known about the recall if I hadn't been looking for a picture to link to in my freecycle post! So much for recalls.gov. But at least I hadn't gotten around to spending money on a new one yet, and I'm glad I found out before giving away a dangerous item to someone else.

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*When I moved into this house 21 years ago, it had a a double-oven range (similar to this one) that was in bad condition and needed to be replaced. I didn't need two ovens, but I would have had to get a range hood to fit over the stove and have it installed, so when I found a new one with a microwave as the top oven it seemed to be exactly what I needed!

It would fit in the space perfectly, and although I already had a countertop microwave, this was a really good one, with then-state of the art features like a temperature sensor, 10 power levels, precise pushbutton controls, and more. My countertop unit was already very old. It had round timer knobs, no features except a defrost button (50% power), and the plastic "ceiling" inside that covered the stirrer fan had fallen off. I figured it would be dying soon, and until then I could enjoy the convenience of being able to cook two things at once.

But after way too few years the upper microwave oven stopped working. It seemed to be the magnetron -- the light and vent fan came on and it seemed perfectly normal, but the food didn't heat up. We waited awhile and tried again. Nothing. Nothing the next day, either. Or the next.

I called the manufacturer and found out it would cost $100 for a purely diagnostic service call. Parts and labor to actually repair it would be extra. A new magnetron would be $300, and labor was $75 for each hour or part. It would probably be at least two hours.

I certainly wasn't going to pay $550 to get the damn thing fixed, so I asked how much a new one would be. Since the microwave is part of the range, it could only be replaced with one with exactly the same part number -- for $400. Plus shipping.

I turned the upper oven into an expensive pot storage cabinet, and went back to using the old countertop unit as my main microwave.

Fast forward more than ten years. The valiant old countertop microwave, over 20 years old, had never died. I looked at new ones, but was loath to pay for a replacement for something that worked fine, even though it was low wattage and had no features. Last year I found a much newer one on freecycle and was delighted. I offered the old one as a second microwave to put in a rec room for making popcorn and warming up coffee and tea.

A couple of months ago the "new" microwave didn't come on when I pushed the start button. I tried several times. Nothing. Frustrated, I tried again later, and it worked fine. Whew! It did the same thing again a couple of days later -- refusing to work, and then changing its mind later.

I was having dinner after the second episode when something suddenly occurred to me. If this microwave could come back to life after not working, I should try the one in the range. I realized it was silly -- we'd been through all that years and years ago. It was broken. The magnetron was dead. Ah, what the hell. I'll try it just for kicks.

I took the pots out, put in a glass of cold water, and gave it 30 seconds. It hummed to life, as it always had -- but I heard a lower-pitched hum under the sound of the vent fan.  ???

Half a minute later I opened the door. The water was warm. The microwave had been resurrected. I couldn't believe it. I tried a new glass of cold water. It warmed up beautifully. The microwave in the range has been working perfectly ever since.

Now I just have to find somewhere else to put those pots.